When it comes to the possibility of significant roster turnover, it’s hard not to pick up where we left off a year ago this time, when we thought anything was possible, and something truly significant was surely on the horizon. Hardened by a calendar year in which the only “non-relief” “contributors”– both terms used rather loosely– added to the MLB roster were Aaron Laffey, Jesse Chavez, JA Happ, Ben Francisco, Jeff Mathis and Yorvit Torrealba, and understanding how the trick Anthopoulos needs to pull has grown in degree of difficulty after a year of injury and regression, a lot of fans seem to have stopped letting their minds race too quickly at ideas of seeing a multitude of new faces on the roster next year.
There are prospects to deal, free agents to sign and changes to be made, to be sure. But the sense I’ve got is that, with a few obvious exceptions, fans seem to figure that most of the players under team control and on the current roster will be here next April.
Is that really so? Could it possibly be so?
Given that teams, if they’re going to be giving up anything that helps the Jays’ big league club, are going to be much more focussed on acquiring MLB-ready players in trade, I don’t think it can be. And seeing as even the usually-secretive front office is being open about the fact that the Jays have to make some acquisitions, certainly there must be guys slated now to return who we won’t be seeing in a Jays uniform next season– y’know, unless Anthopoulos can get really creative, perhaps, as a reader astutely suggested the other day, by striking a lower-cost deal with the Angels or White Sox, who apparently aren’t going to pick up the options on Dan Haren and Jake Peavy anyway, in order to acquire one of those pitchers for the last, expensive year of their current deals… which would be totally badass and not nearly as high-risk as going all-in on some long-term commitment to a free agent.
But no… they’re probably going to have to trade someone of value from the MLB roster. Like one of these guys!
